Kategoriarkiv: In English

Time is in many ways a very interesting phenomenon. No matter how hard we try to define it, we find ourselves lost in the relativity of time. What one person finds boring and time consuming may be interesting to someone else to the point where she loses the sense of time.

I started this blog four years ago. I started it because Sweden had a major election for the Parliament in 2014 and I thought it would be a great idea if I shared a few thoughts on teaching for the upcoming election. From my point of view, many journalists lacked the inside perspective from teaching and my contribution would thus be important.

An interesting and intriguing hobby started off… And not only did I write about teaching, but also various other topics.

Now, four years later, round 54,000 people have read my posts. I was more energetic in my writing in the beginning, but this year, 2018, we have another general election, so who knows? I may start writing more eagerly again… 😉

Migration is not a new phenomenon. People migrated thousands of years ago both abroad and within national borders. Despite the many negatively written articles lately, there are good examples that need to be acknowledged!

I once read in SvD (Svenska Dagbladet) about a small community in the middle of Sweden, where the new migrants were as many as the original inhabitants, but the people in Åre manned up and contributed volunteerly for the group of immigrants. Åre is very far away from the bigger cities. In a small community like Åre, connections between representatives of different authorities may be closer and I guess people in a small village also know each other quite well. When a busload of immigrants arrive, it may cause somewhat chaos for a short while, but true friendship in the local community is crucial. According to the article, people all contributed in their own different fields of society to help the immigrants as smoothly as possible. Today, not even two years later, the Åre society is profoundly changed in many positive ways.

I think, on a national level, when Sweden welcomed many of the refugees who had fled thru Europe in the fall of 2015, that was the only decent thing to do under those extreme circumstances. In my profession I meet many of them now, two years later and guess what? Many of the refugees who have been here less than three years, in fact cope quite well in their new lives in the wintery and snowy northern country of Sweden. My teaching subject is Swedish as a Foreign Language and I meet my students after they have passed the compulsory level and head on to higher levels of Swedish.

I cannot stress enough how rewarding it is to teach adult immigrants and share their stories about life. They learn Swedish, search for jobs and they dream of a home of their own and later a reunion with their family. Thoughts of the past, traumatic memories and losses may slow down the pace in which they learn to cope in their new environment, but despite very emotional events prior to their current situation, most of them are working hard to achieve their goals. In the long run, I think we all try to make the best of every situation despite hardships and trouble we pass along the way, at least that is what my students prove to me over and over again, every day in school.

I noticed in almost every contact with my new American friends that their only connection to Sweden was that they liked the type of candy Americans call ”Swedish fish”. My first encounter with the so called ”Swedish fish” was about ten years ago when I bought some at Shoprite in the USA. When I now again got a lot of questions about ”Swedish fish” I was more and more curious about the fact that we really don’t see them much in Sweden. We rather eat a lot of other candy, for instance ”Ahlgrens bilar”, but many of us would probably spend time picking our true favorite candy at a store where we find ”pick and mix”. The answer to why there are very few ”Swedish fish” in Sweden, is to be found in the link below. Obviously this type of candy was created for the American continent and not for Sweden.

If I would like to by my favourite Swedish candy, Ahlgrens bilar, where would I go? To IKEA, of course… So I did… But obviously they sell large quantities of ”Swedish fish” and the SWEDISH candy ”Ahlgrens bilar” were nowhere to be found in the store. Peculiar, since the candy cars are VERY popular in Sweden and would be, too, in America, if only the Americans had a chance to find them…

Let’s hope @IKEA starts selling @Ahlgrens bilar at the Philly IKEA from now on! I am sure that 400 kids from a school in NJ will be very happy to buy them! I would too, when I return one day!

Saint Lucia or Saint Lucy of Syracuse, from round 300 AC, is today’s protagonist in many different settings… The legend says that Saint Lucia was born in Italy in Syracuse. She was of noble family, but since her father had died Saint Lucia and her mother didn’t have any other solution to support themselves but for the young Lucia to marry a rich man. Lucia, however, had already dedicated her heart to God and did everything in her power to prevent a marriage. According to the legend, Lucia’s eyes were very beautiful. She even tore her eyes out and gave them to one of the men who came to propose, because she wanted to discourage the man. When Lucia was buried her eyes had been restored through miracle and that was also why she was honored as a Saint during the Middle Ages (1).

Why would a country like Sweden celebrate a saint from Italy, you may think? In the winter Sweden and the other Nordic countries long for the summer not only because of the cold and snowy winter, but also because of the darkness. Saint Lucia is celebrated every year the 13th of December and in Sweden the tradition is still very important for Christmas celebration. Many of the traditional songs are sung not only the 13th, but also during Christmas.

Lucia processions are organized all over Sweden and throughout all different sectors in the society. Kids celebrate in pre-schools or schools and adults celebrate if they are choir members for instance. Many towns or cities i Sweden have their own Lucia processions and on TV they show the official Lucia show of the year.

As a young girl I was in my first Lucia procession when I was a few years old. As a teenager I started to sing in a girls choir called Bjursåsflickorna. We gave many Lucia concerts every year. One of the years we were asked to perform at a dinner in the Royal Castle in Stockholm. It was very exciting and a memorable moment. Princess Madeleine who is now a Mom herself, was climbing on the chairs and crawling under the table and was quite an active little girl at the time. The very same choir also performed a traditional Lucia concert at Lugnet’s sports stadium in April… We were pretending it was winter, because of some honorable guests from the International Olympic Comittée. One of them was the chairman at that time, Juan Antonio Samaranch. The idea was for us to sing to bring the Olympic Winter Games to Falun… Obviously that was a mission impossible. Falun lost.

Singing for Lucia in strange places seemed to be one of the habits of this choir. I remember we even sang in the Falu Copper Mine, in almost complete darkness and with the damp vitriolic scent in our noses, helmets on our heads and just a candle to light our way down there. Very exciting and completely unique at that time. I know that later on, many other choirs have sung in the copper mine, too. Nowadays I come across Lucia processions ”by accident”, like for instance today when I visited the shopping mall Kupolen in Borlänge, or when students at school perform. I have also accompanied my own children on different occasions, but for myself, I would say my celebration of the Saint Lucia is found in memory lane…

Before I let you go, let’s just glance at a picture of a typical saffron bun, called ”lussekatt” in Swedish.

But hey… Why invent the wheel??? Please check this link from youtube in order to finally understand this topic!

This summer I had to let go of my piano when I moved from a house to an apartment. I tried to find someone who could accept it as a free gift, but in the end we had to leave it on the city dump. I felt sad and nostalgic when thinking of all the moments I’d spent with my instrument, playing or rehearsing for numerous piano lessons in the past.

This morning I was browsing the suggested documentaries on the Swedish Television channel #SVT. One of them caught my attention, first because there was a comment ”only two days left to watch this video” (So hurry up and watch it, all my friends in Sweden!), secondly because the story was about a man who played the piano. The pianist was a Palestinian, who had lived in Yarmouk in Syria and many of my adult students come from Syria. Some of them are Palestinians, too. I thought I needed this story as an example of what living in exile means, but I was also curious about the piano…

Music is a way to make contact. It is also an excellent way to express emotions. It doesn’t matter whether we mean happiness, sadness, anger or frustration. Whatever feeling or emotion we’d like to express, there is music to it! The pianist of Yarmouk found his way to deal with the war, through music. ❤

The documentary on http://www.svtplay.se is called ”Ett piano, en hjälte, ett krig” (= a piano, a hero a war). Ayham Ahmad tells his story and we follow him for a few years from the beginning of the war in Syria. He works together with his father in a wood shop, making music instruments and playing the piano. When the acts of war spreads in Yarmouk, he brings his piano to the street, in order to sing together with children, to help them focus on something positive rather than the ongoing war. Everyone of us with a heart, will be moved by the story. But those of us who has left an instrument behind for some reason, will realize there will always be solutions. By spreading the music from Yarmouk, Ayham Ahmad tells the world about the war in his own way.

The horrors of the war in Syria is a reality for people still there and also for their relatives and friends in exile worldwide. The war must come to an end! If you live in Sweden, you have access to svt.play and two more days to learn more about Ayham Ahmad and his piano: